How much territorial gold was locally sourced?
topstuf
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Sure the 1848-CAL was California gold, but what about Moffats, Norrises, Georgia and N Carolina coins?
Were private coins all sourced from nearby mines?
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A fair question. Logically it should be, but it is always possible that some depositor converted foreign gold coins into dollar-denominated private coins. Elemental analysis to check for trace elements might show an oddball coin here or there, but you might have to test a lot of coins to find one.
Don't know for sure but suspect the Reid, Bechtler, CO and SF gold was local, the Oregon and SLC gold obviously non-local.
Can't imagine why you would convert world/US gold of a known value into speculative issues.
If you wanted to have some samples of your coins to show people before you have any deposits you might.
I always thought that MOST,if not all, was locally sourced.
Look at the color of the Dahlonega or Charlotte pieces. It was such a chore to get gold from California to the East. Remember that there was no Panama Canal. The SS Central America had to go 'around the horn' to get to our East Coast. It would have been just as difficult for the system to run backwards.
I'd guess to get your money denominated in dollars.
Plus a shortage of coin.
One of my favorites. I found it interesting that these were alloyed with silver instead of copper.
I do not know if there is documentation to establish such a statistic (@RogerB)...However, I would think the large majority would be local gold (with local being relative to the general area). Actual determination - if at all possible - would likely have to be done by XRF or other means of elemental analysis. Cheers, RickO
If you wanted to have some samples of your coins to show people before you have any deposits you might.
Possibly, but those are one off pieces, not the bulk of the production.
The whole point was lots of gold in an inconvenient form, dust and nuggets. These guys didn't set up shop to restrike US/Foreign coins that were already in short supply.
There are several long, detailed California gold mining reports in NARA. These are handwritten originals, not edited for publication/printing. The situation was that by 1851 most of the easily recovered placer gold had been extracted, and more involved means were necessary to get to subsurface alluvial and vein gold. Crushers came into use by corporations and mining became a company-business rather than the earlier small claims mining.
Crushing also brought a large increase in use of mercury to form amalgam with the gold. This was formed into cakes and roasted to drive off (or recover) the mercury. This left a spongy gold mass contaminated with mercury and other elements including silver, antimony, silicon and iron/iron oxide.
Aggregators bought placer and sponge gold in the field, melted it into small bars and the resold it to refiners or the USAOG or eventually the SF Mint.
Since most California territorial gold was minimally refined, it is likely that, as CaptHenway mentioned, trace elements can be detected by nondestructive analysis. However, the gold was probably a mixture from several sources, which means the analysis results are unlikely to match any specific mining district or vein.
The gold mining reports often mention approximate analysis of various sources, but most reports are limited to gold and silver, and sometimes “iridosmine” (iridium, osmium, platinum elements). Trace elements that could identify specific mining sites are rarely specified – if the assayers were able to detect them at all.
Hope this helps answer the OP's question.
I seem to recall that some California gold made it to, and was struck up by the Southeast mints... Roger?
Well, just Love coins, period.
Supporting the use of foreign coin gold, I'd wager some merchants would cheat on weight more than on coins marked, "dollars."
I'd still guess ...most... was locally mined as the minters were also assayers.
Many of the first wave of California miners were people who had worked in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. Those who "got in and got out" brought gold back home. That makes human sense because they had the knowledge, expertise and interest to travel. A look at 1850 and 1860 Census data will prove informative.
Read "They All Rushed In."
The really smart cookies dealt in cast off "stuff" and made a fortune off the discouraged.
Great book.
By the way, this book is ridiculously cheap on eBay, like less than 5 bucks in hardbound. I don't know why it's so cheap, it's a good book.
Edit:
I assume we're talking about the same book, it's actually called "The World Rushed In" by Holliday.
I agree...."most," not "all."
Utah gold coins were struck from gold mined on the Pacific coast states rather than local gold. I don't believe that there were any significant gold discoveries in Utah until after Utah gold coins were struck.
Utah never had much gold. Silver, and especially copper, were there in greater quantities.
The trip from the California gold fields to Utah was probably relatively easy.
Might ask the "Donner Party" about the trip....
Your title is the correct one.
A contemporary JOURNAL of the overland rush.
You wanna talk hardship?
And......disappointment.
The author ....lived....it!
Thanks for the tip, OriginalDan! I just picked up a hardback copy on eBay for $3.95, including shipping. Can't wait to read it.
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Knowing a bit about the factors at play during the various gold rushes, it's unlikely that pioneer gold coins (the term "Territorial Gold" is a misnomer) were struck from much of anything but the gold coming out of the ground. Coins that were struck by the U.S. and other governments were too valuable in commerce to be melted down and restruck - they were legal tender, where the privately minted coins were not, and were even called "counterfeit" publicly by people who wanted them out of circulation.
Templeton Reid literally moved his mint to be nearer to the diggings, and the Bechtlers were providing a service to prospectors in Southern Appalachia. It is unlikely that the 1849 "California Gold" $25 T. Reid that was stolen out of the Mint Cabinet in 1858 (I think it was 1858) was actually struck from CA gold, as it seems to have been essentially a pattern issue, but that's just speculation on my part.
The California coiners were striking coins from locally sourced gold - the bit about Miner's Bank $10s being struck from copper-alloyed gold from the East Coast that is in the catalogue section of the Kagin book is John Ford bullsh*t, intended to denigrate the real coins and prop up the Crimped Border forgeries he was passing in the early '80s. The only CA issue that may be struck from non-CA gold is the Mass & Cal $5, which may have been a pattern issue (the exquisite MS63 looks like a proof, and came out of Massachusetts), although there is some evidence to indicate that their equipment arrived in CA in January of 1850, just in time for the first wave of public discontent over private gold coins. The XF example certainly saw use.
The Mormons and Oregon Exchange pieces of 1849 and 1850 are all from CA gold, as many of the earliest prospectors during the California gold rush were former Mormon Battalion members from the Mexican American War, or trappers from Oregon. Interestingly, I just discovered a report of a counterfeiting operation run out of Salt Lake City in 1848, passing crude copies of U.S. Eagles. Given their somewhat remote location and access to necessary equipment, I suspect that the Deseret Assay Office either grew out of this operation, or used the seized equipment a few months later.
Clark Gruber, Conway & Company, and Parsons were all using Colorado gold, and the Mormon's Lion and Beehive $5s (at least the ones struck in 1860 - Brigham Young was actually striking coins to the order through the 1870s) were also probably CO gold.
Virtually all pioneer gold was necessity money being made in places that lacked stable infrastructure. Genuine gold coins struck by stable governments were generally preferred to the local emergency issues...
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
Great thread! I've wondered about this topic after getting my first Dahlonega mint piece. From what I've read, I believe there was some California gold being struck there after the 1850's. Does anyone know more about that?
My example is 1844 so I believe mine is actual Georgia gold.
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California gold definitely made it to the New Orleans and Philadelphia Mints - I imagine that it made its way to Charlotte and Dahlonega, as well.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
There's probably still more gold up in the California mountains and riverbeds.
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Charlotte & Dahlonega were almost exclusively coining gold from local sources up until the early 1850's. New Orleans not so much -- the majority of its gold bullion was coming from Mexican/South & Central American coinage/sources, converting into U.S. denominations; and most likely so up until the early 1850's also. Once 1850 rolled around, a good amount of the gold the Southern mints were coining was coming out of the California gold fields, brought back by many of the miners who had been working the local areas prior to setting out for the West Coast.
California gold was in Dahlinega by the late 1840’s through the early 1850’s until resuming the preponderance of gold sourced locally for the mid to latter part of the 1850’s through 1861. You can notice the change in color from greenish gold to reddish gold and back to greenish gold based on the sourcing of the material. Local gold was high in silvereading to the greenish hues.
Latin American Collection
Each mint was supposed to keep a record of the place of origin of gold and silver deposits. Here's a sample for the last part of 1842. Most original reports have been lost.
From the 1850 Mint Report:
"During the past year the deposites [sic] of California gold amounted at the Philadelphia mint to $5 ,481 >439, and at the New Orleans branch mint to $666,080. Near the close of the year 1848, the first California gold was brought to the mint, and it amounted to $44,177. Since the end of the past year we have had deposites estimated at $750,000; so that there has been received at the mints, of this gold, the amount of $6,941,693."
Here's a page from the 1860 annual report. Notice that gold source is given by state, but there is no breakdown by Western region except state/territory.
“Kanzas ?”
Obviously the first returns from Colorado before we said “We’re not in Kanzas anymore!”
I just ordered a Moffat $5 because Moffat stamped S.M.V. on em
Standard Mint Value
Don't want no adulterated coins in my collection.